User:Kkelly

Katherine Kelly is the Book Conservation Wiki Coordinator. This is a three year, appointed position on the BPG Publications Committee. In collaboration with the Paper Coordinator, Denise Stockman, Katherine is responsible for overseeing chapter and section revisions, raising awareness of the Wiki, keeping BPG members informed of its progress, recruiting contributors, organizing editing events, assisting anyone that comes forward with research and expertise they want to share, and integrating the Wiki with other BPG PubComm efforts. Please contact her at [email protected] or, if you are logged into this site, by clicking the "Email this user" link below.

Katherine Kelly is also a Senior Book Conservator at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. Previously, she has worked at the Smithsonian Institution Libraries, the National Archives, Iowa State University, Harvard University, and Cornell University. She received her MS in Information Studies and Certificate of Advanced Study in Conservation of Library and Archival Materials from the University of Texas at Austin in 2007.

From 2012-2014, Katherine was part of the Wiki Working Group, whose purpose was to encourage the development of the online BPG catalogs, gauge interest in Wiki publishing, and develop goals for the catalogs. In 2014, she became compiler for two chapters, Mold in the PCC and a new BCW chapter on Scrapbooks.

The rest of this page is a sandboxing area where I collect my incomplete thoughts about future content for the wiki. It is, therefore, poorly curated.

link to a pdf hosted on the wiki

Horton, Richard 2000. “Glossary of Terms Relating to Photo Albums (PDF)” in Conservation of Scrapbooks and Albums: Postprints of the Book and Paper Group/Photographic Materials Group Joint Session at the 27th Annual Meeting of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works. 21-28. AIC, Washington, DC.

consider merging PCC and BCW in to the Book and Paper Group Wiki. Either way, decide on formal structure, names, and interrelationship of pages (this is necessary for creating breadcrumbs and categories). Standard terms: Book Conservation Wiki, BPG wiki, Book and Paper Group Wiki, Paper Conservation Wiki/Paper Conservation Catalog Wiki. Retired terms: Book Conservation Catalog

At the BPG Wiki Session at AIC Annual 2016, there was strong consensus that we can and should improve the wiki navigation and usability by moving away from the legacy format of the print PCC. This means that we should:

Remove numbered outline structure and replace with headers to create a table of contents with internal links.

Remove all internal references to the numbered outline and replace with internal links to headers

There was also strong consensus that we should work towards putting up new content, and that it was fine to set aside the legacy content of the paper PCC (while still keeping it available in pdf form) to enable us to build up new content.

Technical Investigations and Fixes

research formatting options for the autogenerated table of contents. (at the top, off to the side, limiting depth of detail?)

replace link-to-page-with-link-to-pdf with link-to-pdf for all pdfs. Add "(PDF)" to link to warn users.

Fix format of portal so it looks better and more even (check against variable screen sizes, browsers, pc vs. mobile)

Is there a way to display a different "page name" than the one used for the url name. i.e. I want the page called Scrapbooks to be displayed as Preservation and Conservation of Scrapbooks. Or is this a bad idea?

The first edition was published in 2010. The second edition, published in 2014, contains a new section about early canvas bindings, and additional images have been added to the book and CD. This book provides an excellent introduction to Western book binding styles, and is particularly notable for the wealth of bibliographic references to explore topics in greater depth, the attention paid to the more prosaic bindings of various time periods, and the great color images on the accompanying CD. Interesting discussion of "folk mends" or "folk repairs" (p.246-7).

agarose gel recipe: To make a 3% agarose gel: Mix 4.5g Benchmark Agarose LE with 150mL deionized water. Heat on high in microwave for 2-3 minutes, stirring every 30 seconds until clear and no longer grainy. Air bubbles are normal. Pour out onto a flat glass tray to desired thickness and let set in refrigerator for 1 hour(?).

Making a thin layer of 3% agarose gel for use in removing water-based adhesive tape.

Update the Visual Examination Chapter of the PCC to discuss UV, IR, etc. photography. See Discussion page for notes about collaborating with PMG folks...

improve washing page

improved Islamic/Persian binding resources

Bibliography from Gels presentation at AIC Annual 2016 (Hughes and Sullivan or was it Leroux?)

1982 - present. Most recent year available in print (B/W). Digital copy (in color) to BPG Members for a year though MemberFuse, then free online. Not peer reviewed. Also referred to as the Postprints of the AIC Annual Meeting.

Iron-Gall Ink

This would be an excellent call for content, either as part of Media Problems (PCC), or as a stand alone page. Start with the citations below, add annotations. Perhaps we should also have a parallel page on copper corrosion (verdigris).

This article (sent out in a June BPG listserve announcement) recommends the use this iron(II) indicator paper as a testing method. (after a quick read, it is not clear to me if the author is advocating for a required post-testing treatment at the testing spot, or the follow up test of the indicator paper, using a reducing agent...-K)

This article (sent out in a June BPG listserve announcement) discusses the treatment of letterpress copy books with iron gall ink using Berlin tissue pre-coated with gelatin, activated with limited moisture on a suction table. Gelatin was chosen over Klucel because of its stabilizing influence on iron gall ink.

Some other thoughts: search terms should include "iron gall ink" and "iron-gall ink". The hyphen is preferred.

Cellulose Acetate Delamination

brief mention in Hinge, Tape and Adhesive Removal : "A technique that is especially good for cellulose acetate delamination, but may also be effective for large quantities of transparent tape adhesive residues is 4 to 7 “baths” in acetone with a final “bath” in ethanol to “rinse” before aqueous treatment. (SD)

Describes a treatment of early 19th century documents at the National Archives. Delamination was achieved with in a series of 3:1 acetone:water baths. Water was a necessary addition because of the degradation of the cellulose acetate.

Look at these:
Stiber, L. 1988. The delamination of the Washington and Lee ledger: part I: An overview of cellulose acetate lamination. In Occasional papers #6, Early advances in
conservation ed. Vincent Daniels. 27–40.

Atlases and Foldouts

Investigation of the possibilities of folded structures in book bindings. Particular attention is focused on artist's books and accordion folds, but interesting digressions into East Asian bindings and a little bit of folded structures in atlases.

Describes the evolution of treatment practice at the Library of Congress towards the current prevalence of diluted magnesium bicarbonate in an aqueous or ethanol-modified bath. The history of the earlier ""Barrow Two-Step” (concentrated calcium hydroxide, followed by concentrated calcium bicarbonate) and the “Barrow One-Step,” (saturated magnesium bicarbonate) processes with their associated high pH are described as having negative effects on some media, including causing IGI to redden, fade, and/or sink. The history of silking and lamination at the Library of Congress is also reviewed.

Julia Miller, in Books Will Speak Plain, describes these as "Repairs to historical bindings that appear not to have been executed by a professional binder. Such repairs are often neatly done with sympathetic materials similar to the original binding, but can also be very crude."

In addition to.... this article reviews the history of silking at the Library of Congress from 1900-1940 and the reasons for its abandonment.

Humidification of Iron Gall Ink

citation

This citation explains the concerns with humidification of iron gall ink leading the migration of the soluble iron ions, leading to deterioration of the paper substrate.

Thymol(Kruth 1988), formaldehyde, ethylene oxide as a fumigant for mold

Pressure Sensitive Tape for paper repair

citation

Pressure sensitive tape, first developed in ---, is no longer recommended for mending historically important paper documents because of its tendency to yellow with age, the adhesive to migrate over time, stain the paper, weaken and fail, or chemically change so that it is no longer reversible. Even "acid-free or "archival" pressure sensitive tapes share these problems and should not be used.

Perhaps: cellulose acetate or paraffin as a fixative for media.

Bread used as a surface cleaner for paper (residue), Scum-X,

Treatments that were common restoration methods, but have generally fallen out of favor in conservation work because they can conceal or destroy the historical integrity of the object:

filling losses with near-perfect facsimiles without discrete identification and/or full documentation of the repair

piecing together multiple partial objects into a single complete composite.

Trimming documents or book edges to neaten up stained or uneven edges.

There is of course, a large category of materials that have been used historically for conservation treatment that are no longer used because testing or natural aging has revealed that they do not retain the properties for which they were selected. Many materials lose strength or flexibility, change color or yellow, become less reversible, or stain. Sometimes materials are unsuitable only in specific combinations (e.g. silver tarnishes in proximity to...)